“Just for that I’ll open yours first, Elise,” said Patty, laughing. “Which is it?”
“This one,” replied Elise, touching a large parcel; “and it’s perfectly heavenly, Patty! I did it, every stitch, myself!”
“I did every stitch of mine, too,” murmured Roger, “if that makes a present more acceptable.”
Patty untied Elise’s gift, and it proved to be an embroidered muslin hat, very frilly as to brim, and ornamented with tiny, pink-satin rose-buds.
“How lovely!” cried Patty. “Thank you, a thousand times, Elise. The idea of your making those billions of stitches for poor, wuthless me!”
“Wouldn’t you make one for me?” asked Kenneth, “if it’s a mark of such devoted friendship?”
“I’ll make you two,” declared Elise, with a smiling glance at him. “Put it on, Patty; let’s see how it looks.”
So Patty put on the pretty frilled hat, and it formed a most appropriate frame around her golden halo of hair, and her flushed rose-leaf face. She had never looked prettier, and everybody present gave back an answering smile to the dancing eyes and dimpled mouth that challenged it.
Philip Van Reypen said, “By Jove!” under his breath, and Roger, who overheard, murmured, “Yes, and then some!”
Then Patty unwrapped her other gifts. Christine’s came next, and it was a beautiful water colour of her own, in a simple, appropriate frame.